Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Sidewalk Labs, Google’s Incubators for Cities, Ushers In Free Wi-Fi For New York | Re/code

Hitting the pavement with Sidewalk Labs

"In June, Google created Sidewalk Labs, an “urban innovation company” — a firm built to apply tech solutions to cities. Its first move? It formed another company.

Tuesday brings the first fruits of that new company: Intersection — a merger of an outdoor ad and design firm, led by Sidewalk Labs — will unveil a long-awaited free gigabit wireless network across New York City, called LinkNYC.

The plan calls for the deployment of a $200 million network of as many as 7,500 Wi-Fi kiosks — known as Links — across the entire city, over the next eight years. Each will offering free super-fast access within a radius of as much as 400 feet, free phone calls within the U.S., and USB charging stations for smart phones and tablets. The kiosks will replace New York’s aging collection of coin-operated pay phones."